


Calico Jack and the Pretty Lady

by Glenmore



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-26 01:20:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9855752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glenmore/pseuds/Glenmore
Summary: Harry Watson pays a visit to Sherlock and Calico Jack.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was written soon after series three, and deleted in 2015. It is being restored for Mira, who won me in Fandom Trumps Hate and asked if I'd restore my stories. Which I am. This story has been edited to align with series 4.

There’s snow in London this evening. 

Inside Sherlock’s flat, the fire is burning and Calico Jack, who has had a busy day, is stretched out to her full length, sound asleep and dreaming. 

She dreams of the shelter, where the floors were concrete if you weren’t on your mat, where the only interesting thing that happened was the sound of footsteps in the corridor. In her dreams she is in the cage and can hear the voice of He of the Suit and she can smell him approaching. The cage unlocks and next thing she knows she’s running in the park, chasing the tennis ball that no matter how many times it’s retrieved will always be tossed back into the grass and require her to pursue it again at breakneck speed. 

All her dreams are happy. 

Sherlock is sitting in his chair, facing the hot scarlet light and watching Calico Jack’s legs twitch in her sleep. 

The door buzzer rings twice, long and urgent. 

He wonders who would be downstairs at teatime on a Friday night as cold as this. Calico Jack does too. She’s already up, ears on standby and trotting over to the door, waiting for Sherlock to open it so she can follow him downstairs and see who is there and what their business is. 

They find a lady at the door, a lady who is thirty seven or thirty eight, a pretty lady with a slightly nervous smile. She is wearing a heavy red woollen coat over a floral silk dress, expensive knitted tights she bought at Brora, a cardigan that is deliberately mismatched with her dress and short Frye ankle boots. Her knitted hat is a charming mix of garish and delicate and its fuchsia trim matches her lipstick. 

Her purse, which she wears across her narrow chest, is a red patent leather Chanel bag that Sherlock knows would have cost her around several thousand pounds, had she bought it new. He does a quick assessment of the leather, compares it to the quality of her clothes, and deduces that she bought her purse on consignment. 

She is a blond lady, short and a little curvy with blue eyes and small hands that clutch an enormous parcel. Her smile sends tiny flames licking though Sherlock’s belly. 

“Mr Holmes?” she asks politely. 

“I am. Please come in, Ms Watson.” 

Her nervous smile becomes broad and genuine. “Oh my God - you know! You really can do that deducing thing! How did you know?” 

Sherlock has catalogued every muscle of every smile John ever sent him. A story for another time, perhaps. 

“Your resemblance to your brother is disarming. Please come in out of this bitter weather.” 

Calico Jack surreptitiously smells the pretty lady as she climbs the stairs and finds a mix of ice, honeysuckle oil and a cat. 

*** 

Harry Watson is a colourful presence as sits at Sherlock’s table, legs crossed, unbuttoning her coat. She is bright and cheerful, her speech a cocktail of exclamation points and self deprecation. 

“I love your flat! It’s all so retro and bachelor party. Did John like it?” 

“I think so.” Sherlock remembers the first time John came here, on his cane, how buckled tight and hurt he was, how impressed he was with the flat. How much Sherlock wanted him to like it. “Do you take sugar?” 

“No, just white, thanks!” 

Sherlock sets the mug before her and she wraps it in her slender white fingers. Her skin is lighter than John’s, less inclined to tan. 

“I can’t believe I’m actually meeting you! I wanted to come around before, you know, before you – well, DIED! – but John would’ve hated it.” She takes a sip of her tea. “And anyway, I was always pissed and would have got lost.” 

Calico Jack has not yet settled. She walks around the table and stands expectantly at Ms Watson’s side. 

“And you’ve got a puppy dog! I see you, lovely! What’s her name?” Harry pats the silky red head and lightly rubs the long ears between her slight fingers. Calico Jack has not been patted by such small hands for a long time. They are strange, pleasant.

“That’s Calico Jack. She doesn’t get to meet many pretty ladies.” 

“Pity she can’t meet one now!” Harry’s smile is wicked, teasing, straight across the table at Sherlock who can’t look away. 

“Oh, you’re a pretty lady,” Sherlock says kindly. “How is your brother?” He knows the answer already. - he just wants to move this along. 

“Well, that’s why I’m here. You probably know – well, actually you probably don’t, but maybe John said something – but anyway, I don’t see John much.” 

Sherlock nods and waits for her to continue. 

“We just never got on. Well, not after Clara, anyway.” 

“I recall your brother took your divorce hard.” 

“Really? News to me. I thought what he took hard was that he was going out with her first and I ended up married to her.” 

If Sherlock’s surprised he makes no sign. Harry continues. 

“But whatever. He’s not my biggest fan and I’m not blaming him, ‘cause he probably told you I was a bad drinker.” 

“He did, yes.” Sherlock thinks it would be nasty to tell her that he, in fact, told John, all those years ago. 

“I was. But not now!” She rootles through her large purse and produces her key ring and makes her declaration like she is reading a radio advertisement. “Fourteen months! I’m takin’ it one day at a time.” 

“Congratulations. How are you finding it?”

“Hard. But, you know, necessary. It was horrible not to get an invite to the wedding, but I knew where he was coming from. He didn’t want me there, being a dick, being drunk in front of his friends. But it hurt, you know? He’s my brother. I wished I’d been able to be there for him, and I’d have loved to have met his wife.” She takes another sip of tea .“And then she died. I only just heard about it a couple of weeks ago, from Mike Stamford on Facebook. I never even met her. It’s just too sad.” 

“Yes, it is.” 

“Mike said it was a flu, is that right?” 

John had provided an alibi for a few close friends. His wife’s death, Sherlock thought privately, was as dishonest as her life. Once again he supports the lies. 

“They’d gone on holidays. She was sick a couple days, and then caught pneumonia. They were both so busy with the baby that neither of them realised until it was too late. She and John were in Morocco at the time.” 

“I didn’t even know you could die from the ‘flu anymore.” 

 

“I think it was the pneumonia that actually killed her. Her death was very sudden and unexpected.”

“That’s too awful. Poor John.” Harry is genuinely moved, and her eyes glitter with brief tears. “What was she like? Did you like her? ” 

Sherlock, day by day, grow less charitable towards Mary Morstan. She shot me in the guts, he wants to say. Mary Morstan smiled at me with only her teeth, Mary Morstan wished I’d stayed dead. Mary Morstan saved my life but I don’t believe it was with honour. Mary Morstan has stretched the gap between John and I so far, that I don’t think it can ever be restored. 

“She loved your brother very much.” 

“Really? That is so sad. And their baby? Have you met her? Mike posted a picture on Facebook for me! She’s cute but that was months ago now. I bet she’s grown!” 

Sherlock nods. “She’s a lovely little girl. But I don’t see John nearly as much as I used to. He’s very busy with his Rosie and his job.” 

Calico Jack can hear the difference in Sherlock’s voice, and creeps back around the table to sit at Sherlock’s feet. He’s lying, of course. He rarely returns John’s calls these days, and responds to text messages with the bare minimum of words. He is inviting the gap between them, leaving John to his baby, his life. 

“Do you have picture?” 

“Sorry, no.” But John’s sent quite a few. Sherlock opens them only to see if John is in the photo. Whether he is or not dictates how quickly the photo is deleted. 

“Rosie’s such a pretty name! Did they call her Rosemary?” 

He’s hasn’t said it out loud for months. When he’s mentioned her, she’s been the baby, John and Mary’s daughter or now, John’s daughter. Naming her gives her a part in his life he just can’t allow now. It still hurts. 

Calico Jack moves a little closer and rests her chin on his thigh. He pats her with his big hand.

“Rosamund Mary.” Sherlock sees a thousand white flowers and smells their intricate creamy scents. He hears the single crack of a gun.

“That is so beautiful! I bet the wife came up with that. John would have wanted to call her something plain like Kate. Anyway, that’s why I’m here. I bought a present for the ba – for Rosamund.” Her face pleads as she pats the big parcel she has on the floor beside her. “I was hoping you might give it to him for me? I’d do it myself, but I don’t know where he lives and don’t want to start another thing with him if I call him.” 

“And there’s a letter in there also, isn’t there?” 

Harry lifts her dark blonde eye brows. Sherlock marvels that they are the exact same colour as John’s; finer, more delicately shaped, but providing an identical contrast to the same blue eyes. The longing, for a second, is immeasurable.

“How could you know that?” 

“Twelve steps. Step nine, you make reparation. Obviously you feel you have many things you would like to repair with your brother.” 

“You really are extraordinary.” Harry pushes back her fair hair with a single sweep. “Of course, I’d like to say sorry in person but it would never work. So I wrote a letter. It took me ages. I started it before the baby was born.” She takes a good draught of her tea and licks her lips. 

Sherlock knows what its like, to want forgiveness from John. “I’ll make sure he gets your present and letter.” 

Harry’s face is full of gratitude and affection and for that moment her features are completely feminine, entirely her own and not like her brother at all. 

“Thank you! Thank you so much. It means a lot to me that I can do this without ..well you know. Confrontation. And anyway, even if I knew where he lived, I can’t go there. I don’t know that he’d want the baby – Rosamund – to know me.” 

“Of course. I understand. John’s pretty forgiving. I’m sure he’ll be delighted.” 

“Forgiving! Is he? Do you think?” 

“Don’t you?” 

Harry considers this for a moment, trying to find both sides of the argument in her generous heart. 

“Well, he probably is with other people. Actually, he is, I suppose. I’ve seen him let his girlfriends walk all over him, but I always thought that was because he wasn’t, you know, invested in the relationship. He kind of expects more from his men friends. I mean, you probably know how John hero worships men.”

Sherlock’s face is still as he works out how he will expand on that. 

“Would you call it hero worship?” 

“Oh definitely. Well, obviously that must have been a lot of what he had with you, although I did wonder - well, you know what the papers say. Confirmed bachelor and all that. But yeah, he always hero worshipped other boys. It was because of our father. He was really – you know – remote. John adored him - we both did – but he wasn’t … my dad wasn’t very affectionate.” 

This adds to the scraps Sherlock has about John. “John had said that,” although he hadn’t, ever. 

“I think John just grew up thinking the only way to have relationships with men was to adore them from a far, “ she giggled. “Just between you and me, I was amazed he got married. But what the fuck would I know. I used to dress like Baby Spice.” 

Sherlock has no idea who that is but smiles appreciatively. This woman’s self esteem is in tatters, he thinks sadly. She resembles her brother in so many ways. Their father has a lot to answer for. 

“Anyway,” she says as she puts her empty mug back on the table, “I have to get going. You’ve been really nice to me, and I really appreciate it.” 

“My pleasure,” and Sherlock stands with her as she prepares to leave. 

Calico Jack accompanies them both down the stairs. 

Harry buttons up her bright coat and turns the collar to the cold. “Thanks again. And when, you know, you see John, tell him I said hi and that I hope he’s well and happy.” 

“Of course. Very nice to meet you, Ms Watson.” 

“You too, Sherlock!” Then she stands on her toes and kisses his cheek. She feels so tiny beside him.

 

Later that night, Sherlock’s sleeping on clean sheets, dreaming that he is running away from John.

He can hear John trying to catch him and he runs faster, down empty streets and black lanes, desperate to get away from John for all time. 

Calico Jack sits up and in the dark sees Sherlock legs twitching. She moves slightly and lays parallel to him, close enough so he can feel her warmth in his dreams, patiently waiting for his body to relax before she goes back to sleep.


End file.
